Cech: Away form has turned a corner

The Gunners suffered Premier League losses on the road, against Stoke, Liverpool and Watford, before mid-October and also tasted defeat at the Etihad earlier this month leading to criticism that Arsene Wenger’s squad have a mental block away from home. In contrast, the Gunners have won all six of the league games at the Emirates.

Speaking to the Evening Standard after Alexis Sanchez sealed a late three points at Turf Moor, Cech noted: “We said that we wanted to carry on after the big win at home against Tottenham and we needed to back it up.

“Apart from the Everton win away, and a good [0-0] result at Chelsea, we haven’t been getting results away from home.

“But we got a big win here and now, hopefully, we’ve turned the corner in terms of the away games. We need to carry on with our home form and if we can get as many away points as well then we will climb up the table.

“We just showed that when we play on top of our game we are solid, organised and manage to stick to the plan, and if we do that we can win any game.

“But as I said, we have had a lack of consistency in games at times. We’ve switched off at times and we’ve paid for that in the away games particularly this season.

“But we work to our goals, try to improve in every game and we have to keep going like that.”

Arsenal’s latest win takes them into the top four above Liverpool and Sp*rs but they still have work to do if they are to close the 12 point gap on league leaders Manchester City. Pep Guardiola’s men are already being treated as champions-elect having extended their unbeaten start to the season with a win at Huddersfield.

While not ideal, Cech isn’t too fazed about the situation, “It’s only 13 games in, that’s the most important thing, and there’s so many points to be won. You don’t reach your goals after 13 games, you need to carry on for 38 games and show consistency.

“There can be plenty of twists in the table and you see yourselves climb after two wins then have a draw and fall out of the top four pretty quick. It’s packed in there, and I think it will be until the end of the season.”